After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) (70 page)

After Lisa passed the plan on to the caravan, the three of us followed the creek back into the forest. I could tell that Lisa was having trouble keeping up with her boots sinking into the snow, but I wasn’t about to mention it.

Once we were at least a klick in, we turned east.

We crossed followed another stream it led us to a plowed gravel road.

“572,” I said, not that there was much doubt.

We kept as low as we could as we crossed the highway.

I could see a large truck at the intersection with 101. It looked like an old military cargo truck, the kind of deuce-and-a-half you’d pick up from army surplus.

I couldn’t tell if they could see us.

We headed into the forest on the far side of the road, just deep enough that we couldn’t see the highway from the trees.

Then we turned north.

We slowed down once we started to hear voices.

The voices were in French. It’s nice that The Souls are functionally bilingual.

We crept toward the edge of the trees. Within throwing distance.

There were two men in kuttes standing by the truck. Both were armed with shotguns like ours.

The rest of the men were spread along 101 facing east by their bikes, but they were more involved in drinking and talking than keeping an eye on the caravan.

I couldn’t see well enough what weapons they had.

“Grenades,” I whispered to Kayla. “We’ll each take a couple to start things off.”

Kayla opened her pack and pulled out a wrapped bundle. She held up a grenade for us to see.

“There’s no fuse,” she said. “Hard contact does it. So throw it hard and hope it doesn’t land gently in a snowdrift.”

I took two pipes and Lisa took two.

I nodded and then I threw the first grenade.

It landed just to the left of the two men by the truck.

And it exploded.

The blast threw them both to the ground; it didn’t look like they were about to get up.

The other men took a moment to stir, but then they were up and moving around the far side of the truck.

A few took their first shots, but I doubt they could tell where to aim.

Lisa lobbed her first grenade at the truck.

Hard contact.

I saw two men fly out onto the pavement, their bodies mangled.

The other men started moving back toward their bikes.

Kayla threw hers next.

I don’t think she caught any of them.

I passed my second grenade to Lisa and picked up my C12. I started shooting.

The Souls went into full retreat, heading west on their motorcycles.

I hung the C12 on my shoulder and pulled out my SIG.

I found four men lying on the road. I gave each one a head shot.

“That was too easy,” Lisa said as she joined me on the highway.

“I know. They aren’t done with us.”

I took out the phone and called Alain.

“They drove right by,” he told me.

“Then get your people together and get over here,” I said.

Sky and Katie drove Kayla and I back toward our truck while everyone else kept moving east down 101. The four of us squished into the cab, with Kayla sitting mostly on my lap.

“We weren’t expecting a roadblock there,” Katie said. “I would have thought they’d be blocking the road closer to Quebec.”

“It’s easier to control a roadblock close to home,” I said. “Smaller perimeter... just like our own little Green Zone back in Cochrane.”

“But what’s stopping Aiguebelle from taking over everything between that roadblock and the provincial boundary?”

“There’s nothing there. It’s pretty hard to hold a big block of empty shield. Have you ever tried winter camping?”

“So we should be clear for awhile, at least,” Sky said.

I shook my head. “I didn’t say that.”

“I think you did,” Katie said.

“Just because they don’t have roadblocks doesn’t mean they don’t have patrols. You keep a defensible perimeter and patrol the immediate area.”

“We don’t do that,” Kayla said.

“Maybe that’s why we keep getting our asses kicked.”

“So Souls of Flesh patrols toward Quebec and Aiguebelle patrols toward Matheson,” Sky said. “So they’d keep running into each other?”

“There’s probably some kind of no man’s land between their lines,” I said. “Obviously we don’t know where, but we might be there already.”

“So that’s why there’s no one out here?” Katie asked.

“We just haven’t seen anyone yet. I would expect someone to be out here somewhere. If you allow the enemy freedom of action in no man’s land, you’re basically letting them show up at your doorstep unannounced.”

“Are they really enemies?” Kayla asked.

“Aiguebelle is a provisionally autonomous region within the Province of Quebec. Sons of Flesh is a criminal organization that has subverted the legal government of the city of Timmins. I doubt they’re best friends.”

“So we keep going,” Katie said. “One more gauntlet to run.”

“Don’t you get what’s happening? We just attacked a roadblock and killed four men. They’re not done with us.”

“Do they know it was us?”

“Doesn’t matter. You guys aren’t safe.”

“Well we’re not going to try and head back that way. So what else can we do?”

“The same thing Kayla and I are going to do,” I said.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” Kayla asked.

“We’re going to Aiguebelle.”

We said goodbye to everyone at the junction with Highway 672.

They wouldn’t listen to reason, and I knew that Kayla and I wouldn’t make it home if we kept on with them.

Graham and Lisa and everyone else would no longer exist for us, whether or not they somehow made it through. Like Cassy and the rest of the world, I wouldn’t know what became of them.

The only thing I could do was hand Lisa a bundle of six pipe grenades.

“You’ll run into them again,” I told her.

“I know,” she said.

“If these can’t get you through... you might want to use them to...”

“To control my destiny. Thanks, Baptiste.”

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed.

I hadn’t expected that.

We drove the truck toward Quebec, expecting to run into Aiguebelle at any moment.

We drove by the “Bonjour, Quebec” sign without seeing anyone.

The highway was still just as clean and plowed as it had been in Ontario. Someone was keeping it open.

We drove past a clearing in the woods that was likely meant for plows to turn around. The clearing wasn’t plowed.

“They have a gate well into our side back home,” Kayla said.

“We’re not a threat to them, so they don’t worry that much, I guess.”

“So where are they?”

We passed a driveway. No signs that anyone had used it.

And another.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Kayla said.

“Don’t worry...”

“What if The Souls have pushed into Quebec? What if the next roadblock is a pile of angry bikers who know exactly what we just did?”

I decided to ignore her for a while. I didn’t have an argument to make.

I had no reason to believe she wasn’t dead on.

Then we came to the first real intersection.

“Roads are plowed,” I said.

“I don’t see why...”

“To draw us in.”

“What?”

“They want people to go deep inside their territory.”

“Why?”

“Because then they have the advantage. They know we’re here. I’m sure they’ve been watching us.”

“We’ll be coming up on some cottages soon. Lac Hébécourt. Do you think they’ll stop us there?”

“We need to ditch the truck.”

“But we don’t even know what they’ll say.”

“We won’t get a second shot, Kayla. Once they stop us, that’s it. They might just tell us to turn around, or they might take everything we’ve got and send us back on foot. It’s not like we can ask for a do-over.”

“So we dump the truck and then what? We go live in the woods?”

“We’ll find another truck,” I said. “We just need to get off the road and past their defensive lines.”

“Which we haven’t even found yet.”

I stopped the truck.

“Dammit, Baptiste... this is seriously our worst date yet.”

“I’m sure it can get worse.”

We packed up for the trip, shoving what little food we’d brought into our packs. That was when I realized that we hadn’t even eaten since we’d left McCartney Lake.

The sun was maybe a half hour from setting. I was surprised the day had held out that long. It felt like it had gone on forever.

We headed southeast, still wearing our vests and helmets, and with our snowshoes strapped to our boots, toward what we hoped were still just cottages.

For all we knew, the entire lakefront had been converted into a military base.

We came to a section of marsh at the edge of a good-sized lake.

I could see a house on a spit of land where the marsh met the open water.

I took out my binoculars.

“I see smoke,” I said. “Someone lives there. Wish I knew who...”

“I should go.”

“What?”

“I’ll go take a look. No one feels threatened by me. If they catch me, they aren’t going to shoot me.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“No... I am sure of that. People do like me, Baptiste. Well... people who aren’t Sara.” She clasped her hand against her helmet, where her mouth should be. “Sorry...”

I nodded.

She took off her helmet and her vest, then slowly peeled off her riot suit. She pulled her jacket out of her bag, followed by her pink toque and scarf, and her light blue mittens.

“See?” she said as she dressed. “I’m all sweet and innocent.”

“You’re beautiful,” I said. I took of my helmet and gave her a kiss. “Be careful, Kayla.”

She smiled and started walking. She kept her head up and her pace was casual, and she looked exactly like someone who should have been there.

She peered into the window of the cottage, then looked back at me. She held up two fingers and then pointed back to the cottage.

Two people.

She held up her index finger, then ran her hand through her hair.

I was pretty sure she meant “one woman”.

A married couple, maybe? Or two off-duty border guards?

Kayla crawled in the snow beneath the window frame. Once she was past, she stood back up and looked perfectly normal.

I was impressed.

She walked toward the garage. She went around a corner and I couldn’t see her.

I had to get closer.

I grabbed her pack along with mine and followed the treeline toward the garage. I kept going until I could see her.

She’d opened the garage door.

No locks.

She went in for a moment, and then she came back out.

I started off toward her.

She stuck a finger up to the tip of her nose and slowed her pace.

“A snowmobile,” she said. “We could take it on the lake. People would just assume we’re cottagers.”

“Not bad.”

We opened the overhead door by hand, doing our best to make sure we didn’t make any noise. Then we pushed the snowmobile across the yard and around the back of a gray and white boatshed.

We had trouble getting it through a clump of bush, but we eventually got it down to the lake.

“I can drive,” Kayla said in a whisper. “You’re in charge of shooting people.”

I nodded.

We climbed on and she started the engine.

Hopefully the couple in the cottage would think it was the neighbours going for a ride.

Assuming they had neighbours.

We drove along the lake, heading to a collection of lights that had just started to come on at the far side.

I was hoping we’d find a cottage that was dark but not forgotten; if they were still used as cottages, there’d hopefully be some owners who weren’t home.

It didn’t take us long to find just that, a small a-frame that seemed out of place among some newer builds. We found a shed filled with firewood, and so I gingerly broke into the back porch and we found a place to stay.

I could tell they had electricity; everyone on that lake seemed to have it, even though I hadn’t noticed an overabundance of solar or wind installs. It looked like Aiguebelle still had their grid.